The Apple iTunes store has added Podcasts at the iTunes Music Store
(just click on “podcasts” from the main menu at the ITMS) and of course they are free. I know you’re thinking, “Who cares, I’ve already got podcasting software to download them and add them to my iPod?” But this doesn’t need software this builds it right in so your friends who you haven’t gotten to listen have no excuse now (the software is free and so are the downloads). Plus they updated the firmware on your iPod to offer several benefits (read on). And Apple started their own weekly new music podacast!
The new iPod software puts the podcasts in a folder so they don’t get mixed in with your music. Plus they all appear to be automatically bookmarked when you leave a podcast and come back to it!!!! This is important for the longer shows (some are 20-60 minutes) when you want to come back and not have to fast forward through a lot of information!
What didn’t they do? I don’t see any way to make my own smart playlist of podcasts. It’s inconvenient to jump around between different podcasts (or I’m doing it wrong). I used to make a smart playlist of short (30sec-2min) daily podcasts and listen to them all in 20-30 minutes, it was like my own radio show. I’m really hoping I’m missing something on this and someone can correct me on it.
I’m sure I’ll find more to comment on about this good and bad but so far the plusses far outweigh the minuses to me…
Smart Playlists: Apple uses “Genre: Podcast”, so you can use it for your smart playlists.
That’s not true (at least on mine) it doesn’t grab from the “Podcasts” group no matter how I try a smart playlist.
If I drag them all from the apple “Podcasts” group to a manual playlist (called TEST) on my iPod a smart playlist will see them (even just by setting the criteria of PLAYLIST to PODCASTS) but as soon as I delete them from TEST they disappear from the smart playlist. And obviously TEST is never up-to-date (but it might be worth the drag to keep it up to day, maybe I can script it)…